WordPress Preview Gate

A simple passkey gate for unfinished WordPress sites.

Some websites are not ready for the public yet.

• Maybe you are still building the homepage.
• Maybe the client needs to review the design.
• Maybe the store is being tested before launch.
• Or maybe you simply want to keep visitors out until everything feels right.

WooUseful Preview Gate gives you a clean, lightweight way to hide your unfinished WordPress site behind a simple passkey page.

Instead of showing a broken layout, half-finished content, or random test products, you can display a polished preview screen and share access only with the people who should see the site.

No accounts. No complicated setup. No heavy maintenance-mode builder.

Just enable the gate, set a passkey, and share access when you are ready.

Why use it?

When a site is in progress, you often need two opposite things at the same time:

You need the site hidden from regular visitors, but still accessible to developers, clients, testers, or team members.

WooUseful Preview Gate was built exactly for that moment.

It helps you protect the public side of the site while keeping preview access easy and controlled. Visitors without the passkey see your preview page. People with the passkey can enter and browse the website normally.

It is especially useful for:

• New WordPress sites before launch
• WooCommerce stores under development
• Client review stages
• Theme or redesign work
• Testing environments
• Temporary private previews

What it does

WooUseful Preview Gate adds a simple access screen in front of your website.

When the gate is enabled, visitors are asked to enter a passkey. If the passkey is correct, they get access to the site for a configurable period of time. If they do not have the passkey, they stay on the preview page.

Admins can still access the site and dashboard normally, so you do not lock yourself out while working.

Main features

Simple passkey protection

Set one passkey and share it with the people who should preview the site.

The passkey field is kept strict and safe: only letters and numbers are accepted. Anything else is removed before saving or checking.

Random passkey generator

Generate a long random passkey directly from the settings page.

You can copy it quickly, use the suggested key, or generate and save a new one when you want to reset access.

Shareable preview link

Create a preview access link that unlocks the site for the visitor without making them manually enter the passkey.

Useful when sending access to a client or teammate.

Clean preview page designs

Choose from several simple, classy design templates.

The plugin stays minimal, but gives you enough visual control to make the preview page feel intentional instead of unfinished.

Custom text and colors

Change the heading, message, card title, button text, background color, text color, accent color, logo width, and heading size.

You can keep it playful, professional, minimal, or client-friendly.

Logo upload

Add your own logo to the preview page so the gate feels connected to the site you are building.

Rate limiting

Wrong passkey attempts are rate-limited to reduce simple brute-force guessing.

The plugin does not store attempted passkeys or create visitor logs.

Admin and role bypass

Administrators can continue working normally. You can also allow logged-in users or specific roles to bypass the gate.

IP and path exclusions

Allow specific IP addresses or exclude specific paths when needed.

Useful for testing tools, callbacks, or pages that should remain reachable.

SEO-safe temporary mode

When enabled, the gate can tell search engines that the site is temporarily unavailable.

It can return a 503 response and add noindex so unfinished content is not accidentally indexed.

Emergency kill switch

If you ever need to force-disable the gate without using the WordPress dashboard, you can add this to wp-config.php:

define('WUPG_DISABLE_GATE', true);

Lightweight and privacy-friendly

WooUseful Preview Gate does not include analytics, email capture, visitor tracking, or external assets.

It is built to do one job clearly: keep your unfinished site private until it is ready.

Who is it for?

WooUseful Preview Gate is for developers, agencies, freelancers, store owners, and site builders who need a fast way to protect a work-in-progress WordPress site.

It is not trying to be a complex landing page builder.

It is a small, focused tool for a common real-world problem:

“The site is not ready yet, but some people still need to see it.”

 

Perfect for

• WordPress development
• WooCommerce store testing
• Client previews
• Website redesigns
• Pre-launch staging
• Temporary private access

Free plugin

WooUseful Preview Gate is offered as a free WooUseful plugin.

Install it, enable the gate, set a passkey, and keep building with less worry.